[nycbug-talk] spam & comcast

[G.Rosamond]

On Jul 2, 2004, at 11:28 AM, Trish Lynch wrote:

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> Hash: SHA1
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> On Fri, 2 Jul 2004, G.Rosamond wrote:
>
>> mentioned by eric allman this am at usenix. . .
>>
>> http://news.com.com/Comcast+reports+35+percent+decline+in+spam/2100
>> -1038_3-5251909.html?tag=nefd.top
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> talk mailing list
>> talk at lists.nycbug.org
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>>
>
> For a second, I was going to get upset, but then I realized what 
> they're
> doing....
>
> plus this excerpt from another article allayed my fears:
>
> "While many spammers use an open port 25 as a workaround, there are
> legitimate uses as well. More technically savvy subscribers and small
> businesses use the open port to connect to outside mail servers or to 
> run
> their own SMTP servers. "
>
> "We have commercial customers that aren't spammers that we don't want 
> to
> impact," Comcast's Bowling said.
>
> Check the headers from my mail if you don't know why I was panicing :)
>
> - -Trish

Understood. . .

Obviously a lot of port 25s are legitimately open, and a lot that are 
closed should be open.

And it's a temporary fix.  The real and large spammers are way too 
sophisticated to be stopped by something so basic.

Eric Allman did raise the issue of legislation, which i think is a joke 
as an anti-uce tool.  He said that legislation just scares and 
sometimes shuts down the mom-and-pop spamming shops (weird visuals i'm 
getting), but the larger operations go offshore. . .which is no 
different than child porn, gambling or whatever.

It's not about laws, killer apps, or whatever.  It's about RFCs, 
current and future ones, that address the issue, and then are 
implemented by the big ISPs.  And I don't just mean blocking open 
relays.

The fact that some polls show that 20% of people have responded to spam 
certainly doesn't strengthen the fight.

g